Smart Campuses are to universities what ‘Digital’ was to modern business a few years ago, and that’s a huge problem.

One of the larger trends of 2014/2015 has been the change of stance in how Businesses see digital; namely as a cultural movement rather than a ‘project’ within a programme of initiatives.

We see brands like Telstra take on the task of digitising it’s business with a 500m self investment, and a dedicated internal team to champion the movement, Digital First.

In a similar sense the emergence of the smart campus is, for most educational institutions, a project that should be treated as an entire paradigm shift in the way that we all want to absorb education.

Over the last year I’ve developed a particular disdain for the phrase ’Thank God It’s Friday’, of which I’ve given the moniker ‘TGIF Syndrome’.

The characteristics of TGIF Syndrome are often very obvious, and the most apparent is busyness (or constant reminder of busyness, i.e. ‘I am too busy to…’).

Realistically though the reason for TGIF Syndrome is a lack of priority, or self management skills. It is fundamentally important to value your own time, and yourself, throughout the week (not just weekends).

TGIF Syndrome is also very much a ‘glass is half full’ view of a very significant part of one’s week. Work takes up 40 hours of face time, and even more time in travel, the always on nature of our Internet devices, and other demands.

While a weekend is a great, sacred, and beautiful two days earned for hard work performed throughout the week, it is not the only time you can seek fulfilment or achieve personal goals.

I have recently spent the longest time of my career searching for a new position, and while this post might seem a little jaded, I'm referencing roles where I was also successful but declined the role, or unsuccessful.

The largest part of my experience was that there is a severe lack of respect for the time of a candidate, including appropriate times to call, how long it is appropriate to wait before responding, the ridiculousness of autoresponders, and outright disregard for opinion.

My experience with recruiters was very one–sided with little gain from myself. I followed them up, I did their work, and very rarely did I receive detailed feedback.

There were a number of key learnings for me during the last few months of working with recruiters on finding a position, however my frustration lies equally with both employers and recruiters as offenders.